Telling A Planet Forward Story: Making It Pretty And Having A Point

Great visuals (or B-roll) dress up your narrative and make your story sexy. They also serve a functional purpose: they cover up cuts in your interviews, and they give you editing freedom. Great visuals can be as simple as panning image, or they can be as in-depth as a shot of your subject doing the things they’re talking about.

Once you’ve got interviews and visuals, you have all the tools you need to give your video a point. What do you want people to do with all this great material you’ve collected? Do you want them to share it, donate to a cause, or send in a video reaction? The internet is full of interesting “asks,” and that’s what will put your video on the map.

Our first stop in Nebraska is in Lincoln: NET Nebraska, the headquarters for the state's network of public radio and television stations. Here the group met with experienced storytellers to learn more about environmental challenges that have been covered and the people the reporters met. From left: Dan Reed, Chad Davis, Eleanor Hasenbeck, Ilana Creinin, Laura Waxman, Topanga McBride, Diana Marcum, Laura Whaling, Will Lennon, Sydney Greene, Zack Smith and Kim Ossi.

Fighting nature with nature seems like a good idea – unless nature doesn’t care about geography. A 20-year-old federal decision to use a beetle to slow the spread of an invasive shrub is hurting an endangered songbird.